LAHORE: Punjab Home Secretary Noorul Amin Mengal says the prisoners at all jails in the province are being imparted training in a number of vocational skills to help them earn a little income as well as engage mentally to shun negative thinking.

During a journalists’ visit to the Kot Lakhpat jail on Wednesday, Mr Mengal flanked by IG Prisons Mian Farooq Nazir and other senior officers showed the products including rugs, footballs, furniture, handcrafts, crockery, tiles, soap, prisoners’ stitched uniforms etc., prepared by the inmates.

Mr Menegal said the vocational training programmes were launched under the prisons reforms agenda to develop skills among the prisoners so that they could earn some money for their families, while in jail. He said these prisoners, when set free, would be able to begin and run their personal business to earn respectable livelihood. He said the prisoners were also being trained as electricians, mechanics, cobblers, barbers, beauticians as well as IT courses.

In order to engage prisoners in vocational training and work, the home secretary said the department had enacted new laws and amended rules of business. Now, he said, prisoners developing final products were being paid and the funds being transferred to their family accounts.

To a question, Mr Mengal agreed that the Punjab jails had become over-crowded and added that the prisoners, caught in drugs and narcotics cases, shot up the under-trial prisoners’ number in the jail. He said the prisoners’ number had been shot up from 50,000 to 70,000 in Punjab jails.

Answering another question, he agreed that the law-enforcement agencies were arresting various persons including political workers, while registering cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act (7-ATA) and sending them to jail.

Acknowledging that the registration of so many cases under 7-ATA could help enemies of Pakistan to project this country as having a large number of terrorists at global level, the home secretary said the government was working on developing the National Security Act to deal with the political prisoners and others infringing national security.

Kot Lakhpath jail superintendent Mr Ijaz, additional secretary (prisons) Asim Raza and other senior home department and prisons officers were present on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2025